Anthropic report says AI erases hacker skill gap

Artificial intelligence has erased the skill gap that once distinguished state-sponsored hackers from lone criminals, according to a threat intelligence report Anthropic published on Thursday, September 10, 2026. The report documents misuse of its Claude models across seven areas of harm, including cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams and fraud, biological misuse, conventional weapons development and distillation, covering activity observed between December 2025 and August 2026. Anthropic said it disrupted each operation, strengthened safeguards and shared intelligence with authorities and industry partners where appropriate. Among the most extensive cases, Anthropic said a Russian-aligned actor using the handle JackPoterz, whose behavior matched patterns linked to Midnight Blizzard, ran an espionage campaign against more than 20 government and defense organizations across Ukraine and Europe. According to the report, AI monitored whether security products flagged the actor's malware and autonomously rebuilt it to evade detection.